


Tell It Slant

by AERCHIVE (aerClassic)



Category: ATEEZ (Band)
Genre: M/M, but the timeline is a tad out of order, non-au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-26
Updated: 2020-11-26
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:07:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27692554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aerClassic/pseuds/AERCHIVE
Summary: It starts with a bracelet.Well,no, it starts when management informs them in no uncertain terms they can’t actually bring home any of the gifts the group receives during fansigns and Wooyoung decides to take that as a challenge.Or: The one where Hongjoong is cursed to tell the truth.
Relationships: Jeong Yunho/Kim Hongjoong
Comments: 7
Kudos: 173





	Tell It Slant

It starts with a bracelet.

Well, no, it starts when management informs them in no uncertain terms they can’t actually bring home any of the gifts the group receives during fansigns and Wooyoung decides to take that as a challenge. 

Either way, it starts with a bracelet. 

And all of it is Wooyoung’s fault. 

**\------------**

“You know we’re not supposed to actually _keep_ the stuff Atiny brings us, right?” Hongjoong says mildly as Wooyoung gleefully starts emptying his pockets the second the group walks into the dorm. Somehow he managed to smuggle fistfuls of trinkets and a whole stuffed animal the size of Hongjoong’s fist away from the venue without anyone suspecting. “ _Dude_.” 

Wooyoung continues to dazzle the group by emptying his pockets. “What? No one was looking and it’s not like I’m taking food so we aren’t going to end up poisoned or whatever it is management is so worried about.” 

Seonghwa grabs a tiny black dragon plush for himself and announces he’s getting a nap. Hongjoong offers a friendly slap on the ass on his way out that Seonghwa rewards by whipping the toy at Hongjoong’s head at prejudiced speed.

“Ow, _bitch_!”

“Serves you right,” Seonghwa retorts, dusting off his tiny dragon and slamming the door to their room.

“Trouble in paradise?” Yunho asks while his shoulders shake with repressed laughter.

“Trouble in shut up that joke is so old it’s wearing Depends,” Hongjoong shoots back. “San, quit trying to make Wooyoung a list. We’re not encouraging this behavior.”

San and Jongho are bent over a stack of sticky notes in the shape of a heart trying to come up with a viable list of possible requests for the next pass. Mingi and Yeosang are both surreptitiously trying to tiptoe over them to see the list as Wooyoung smugly preens over his mound of ill gotten goods.

“But it’s fun and it doesn’t hurt anyone,” San tries, though Hongjoong can see the sticky note getting passed off beneath the table. “Wooyoung is just keeping things given to us anyway!”

“You always take his side,” Yeosang accuses, as if he isn’t 100% on the Wooyoung bandwagon himself.

“Not always,” San whines, lips puckered up in a pout. “Sometimes I’m on Yunho’s side. Right, Yunho?”

“I’m not getting dragged into this.” Yunho puts his hands up and backs away from the table. “I’m just amazed Wooyoung could get this much shit in his pockets without staff noticing.”

Jongho mouths _bribery_ behind Wooyoung’s back and points significantly at his wallet. 

Hongjoong pinches the bridge of his nose. “So you paid someone off to look the other way.”

“No,” Wooyoung draws out in a tone that is not at all reassuring. “I’m just very cute.”

“And persuasive,” Mingi chimes. 

Wooyoung nods. “Also that.” 

He twirls an obviously homemade bracelet of lava beads and mottled lapis lazuli with gleaming silver spacers on his pinky with a mischievous grin. “ _Also_ also I managed to nab one of your gifts before it was taken away too.” 

Hongjoong barely catches the accessory when Wooyoung lets it fly off his hand. 

“You can thank me later.”

And, like, really, what is Hongjoong supposed to do? Say no to free shit? He slips the bracelet over his wrist but mimes _I’m watching you_ with two fingers in Wooyoung’s direction. Wooyoung only blows him a kiss, which San snatches out of the air with a very pointed glare and then proceeds to drape himself along Wooyoung’s shoulders like some sort of weirdly possessive limpet. Yeosang and Jongho grimace simultaneously, gagging behind their hands when Mingi interrupts the sudden quiet by belching loud and blowing it into everyone's faces.

 _I’m surrounded by toddlers_ , Hongjoong thinks, pretending not to notice the mostly one-sided fight breaking out while Wooyoung and San cheerlead for Jongho.

“You’re being a bit of a hypocrite wearing the bracelet, don’t you think?” Yunho asks, mouth dipped a little too close to Hongjoong’s ear for comfort -- for his traitorous idiot heart not to go tripping over itself at the proximity. 

“Just a smidge,” Hongjoong agrees. “Do me a favor and throw some water on them before someone gets hurt? I’m going to hang out in the studio for a few hours while Seonghwa gets his beauty sleep.”

It won’t hit him until much later, but Hongjoong will recall that moment was the start. He hadn’t even thought about his answer before it was already falling out of his mouth -- an innocuous answer about a bracelet he could not care less about.

**\----------**

Hongjoong leaves the studio after countless fruitless hours trying to make the sound he hears in his head manifest itself on his computer and he’s so frustrated by his own perceived ineptitude that he debates having a good, wholesome cry on the walk back home. It’s dark, bordering just on the cusp of midnight, so he thinks he could get away with sitting on the sidewalk and boohooing for a few minutes before someone calls the cops on him. Maybe. Probably best not to risk it though what with Dispatch constantly on the prowl and all. They've got enough problems without Hongjoong landing himself on a twitter thread about being found crying in the street and whipping the internet into a frenzy over his mental health, which is no one's business but his own. 

At the dorm, no one is awake in the living room or the hallways. No doors are standing open in invitation and no sound of laughter is filtering beneath the cracks. Ordinarily this would be a whole host of red flags, but the day had run long and schedules had started early. Perhaps this one instance of complete quiet isn't so terrifying after all.

He does find Seonghwa hunched over the desk in their room working on a language packet though.

Hongjoong shuts the door to their room quietly. “Thought you’d be asleep.”

“Nap fucked up my schedule. I was going to try again here in a few when I got to a stopping point.” Seonghwa regards him with his eyebrows raised. “You look rough.”

“Thanks.” 

Hongjoong drops face down into the relative warmth of his bunk, not even bothering to kick off his uncomfortable jeans or remove any of his clunky jewelry. That was a problem for Future Hongjoong. Present Hongjoong wants to black out for a couple of hours and maybe pour lighter fluid all over his studio for funsies. He makes a mental note to call Maddox in the morning to bitch about it and hope his friend slash mentor can help him through the slump. Or commiserate with him over plans to commit arson, either way it's win-win.

He hears Seonghwa clear his throat. “Need a hug?”

 _No_ is what Hongjoong means to say, because it’s almost entirely a joke and Seonghwa is only offering because he knows Hongjoong will refuse. Their routine, when Hongjoong is around long enough to participate, is to fist bump each other over the lip of Seonghwa’s bunk and then fling their hands around as if they’ve traded cooties until one of them decides to roll over and pass out. 

What actually happens is this: he opens his mouth and the equivalent of verbal diarrhea falls out. 

“Actually yeah. I’m feeling kind of vulnerable because of my time in the studio and a hug sounds really nice right about now.”

Seonghwa sucks in a breath, loud, and Hongjoong feels his face flame up. Thankfully he’s hidden by the tangle of sheets he hadn’t bothered to straighten before they all left that morning for schedules and can’t see whatever smarmy asshole expression Seonghwa is making behind his back. 

“What is _this_ all of a sudden?” Seonghwa gleefully crows. “Where’d all this honesty come from?”

“I don’t know,” Hongjoong says without thinking and groans. “Shut up, go away.”

“And lose this golden opportunity to tease you?”

Their awful wooden chair creaks ominously, like Seonghwa is being cruel enough to actually get up to hug him, and Hongjoong mashes his face harder into the stale linens in the hopes he’ll suffocate before Seonghwa gets the chance. 

“Do _not_ come over here!”

Too late. Seonghwa's weight settles on top of him until his friend can wedge his arms under Hongjoong to roll them sideways, legs tangled up and hanging over the railing as Seonghwa giggles evilly against the back of his skull. 

“You want to hug me,” Seonghwa sing-songs. “Look at you! You’re being so cute and honest admitting you want a hug from your favorite person.”

Squirming accomplishes fuck all because, apparently, once Seonghwa gets his hooks into you it’s game over. Hongjoong wilts, pouting petulantly at the wall like it's the wall's fault he's landed in this position. “You’re not my favorite person.”

“Favorite person you don’t want to bone,” Seonghwa amends with an underlying coo in his voice, since he is clearly the devil and the embodiment of all things horrible and awful in the world. “Admit I’m your favorite cuddle buddy or I’ll get Yunho in here to look sad until you crack.”

Hongjoong angrily throws a pillow over his head until he feels it connect with Seonghwa’s face, who doesn’t so much flinch away from the attack as he does laugh his way through the onslaught. 

“I’m never telling you secrets ever again,” Hongjoong says feelingly. “You promised not to say anything about the -- the _thing_.”

"Saying it like that makes it sound like a horror movie." Seonghwa nuzzles his nose to the nape of Hongjoong’s neck. “For what it's worth, I think your gooey schoolboy crush on Yunho is sweet.”

“ _Seonghwa_.”

“Ugh, spoilsport.”

They lapse into silence. Hongjoong begrudgingly admits to himself the cuddling is nice and kicks at Seonghwa’s shins until he gets the hint to move so they can at least readjust to being underneath the comforter. Despite the lamp on the desk lighting up one half of the room, Hongjoong feels heavy-lidded with sleep. Seonghwa’s arms are a comforting weight around his waist and the heat along his back is a welcome distraction from the cold dorm now that winter has set in and their heating unit remained off. 

He’s on the edge of dreaming when Seonghwa whispers, “You know you can come to me with anything, right? There’s no reason to go hiding in your studio if I can help with whatever it is you’re dealing with.”

Hongjoong blows out a breath, throat clogging with sudden tears. He’s terrible at allowing himself to be vulnerable outside of winning an award and crying about it on stage. In the early days when it was just him in this branch of the company trying to prove himself worthy in Eden’s eyes, Hongjoong had carried every burden by his lonesome. All the worries about his future, all the fear he was going to fail, everything hung like a cloud over his head until the day Yunho joined.

Sometimes he misses the days when it was the pair of them against the odds, counting down the days between staff meetings while they planned out their futures and laughed together in the quiet of the too small dorm room they shared with three other trainees. But things are different now, and it doesn’t seem right to place any of those same fears on Yunho’s shoulders too when he’s been designated the leader of their ragtag group of friends.

He is eternally grateful Seonghwa is kind enough to put up with him.

“I know.” He squeezes Seonghwa’s knuckles under the blankets in the cover of darkness and tacks on, “But tell anyone I’m the little spoon and I’ll kill you.”

“Love you too,” Seonghwa murmurs, words slow and slurred with looming sleep.

**\----------**

There’s not really enough time to accessorize the next morning, so Hongjoong leaves on the jewelry he’d been wearing the night before and scrambles to get dressed in something other than yesterday’s jeans before zooming out the door with the rest of the guys. Early morning schedules mean even earlier morning dance practice that Hongjoong can barely remember aside from the twerking someone -- was it San? It’s usually San -- dares Yunho to add in out of nowhere. 

Seonghwa hands him a cold water bottle with his lips rolled between his teeth to stop himself from laughing.

“For the thirst,” he whispers.

“I know where you _sleep_ , cretin,” Hongjoong hisses low so as not to alert the peanut gallery, clearly ineffectual by the way Seonghwa’s eyes widen and his cheeks redden with mirth. Urgh. 

The twerking is still happening though, and it’s not his fault his eyes move on their own accord to places they probably shouldn’t. Round places. Probably firm too, not that he’d ever know from firsthand experience which was a shame.

Jongho and Mingi lean their heavy weight on either side of him and already Hongjoong regrets letting his eyeballs wander. 

“Both of you shut up right now or so help me I will lock myself in the studio forever,” Hongjoong threatens, low so Yeosang and Wooyoung can’t pick up on it where they’re filming Yunho and San trading moves.

“I have no idea what you’re trying to imply,” Jongho says sweetly. “We’re just standing here.”

Mingi props his chin on Hongjoong’s head. “Yeah, you’re just paranoid.” 

Which would hold some weight if Mingi weren’t also shoving his phone into Hongjoong’s face with a still shot of Yunho, back turned to the camera, gyrating while Hongjoong himself looks nigh catatonic in the background. 

“This is blackmail,” Hongjoong tells them.

“No, this is just a friendly conversation between friends,” Jongho denies. “How’s the thirst?”

“Better now thanks to the water Seonghwa gave me earlier,” Hongjoong responds automatically, furrowing his brows a little in confusion but dismissing it as being overtired. “What do you want?”

Mingi winds his long arms around Hongjoong’s waist and jostles him a little. “Can I have a pony?”

“We don’t currently have the space for one, but I’m sure one day, when you own land and can provide the necessary care, you can absolutely have a pony. Maybe even two,” Hongjoong says without thinking. Hold on. What?

“Weird,” Mingi says slow. He trades a look with Jongho that immediately puts Hongjoong on edge. “Are you still wearing that bracelet Wooyoung gave you yesterday?”

Hongjoong holds it defensively against his chest. “Yeah. Why?”

Jongho smirks. “What’s the square root of pi?”

“I have no idea.” Hongjoong shoves Mingi away and smooths out the rumpled creases in his shirt. "What kind of question is that anyway? Do I look like a calculator to you?”

“To be fair, you do look like a nerd in those big grandpa glasses,” Mingi comments. 

Apparently Hongjoong trades one fuck-off heavy giant for another as Yunho drapes his long arms over his shoulders and presses his sweaty torso against Hongjoong’s back. “Who looks like a nerd?”

“Me,” Hongjoong manages through a wheeze. The others are all huddled in a corner around Wooyoung’s phone, even Seonghwa, snickering at something playing on low volume. 

“I think you look very handsome,” Yunho says, squishing their cheeks together with a happy hum. “Could probably use another pass with the deodorant though.”

“Then back up and quit smelling me,” Hongjoong whines, mortified despite himself. They probably all smell like the inside of Jongho’s weighted leg bands at this point anyway. He shouldn’t care so much that Yunho, of all people, thinks he stinks after a hard workout.

Yunho sways them together gently. “Nah.”

Hongjoong indulges in relaxing in Yunho’s arms, just a little, just enough to lean back so he can feel the hard planes of Yunho’s body all the way down to his hips. To his credit, Yunho accepts his weight, welcomes it even, and slides long fingers along Hongjoong’s arms until they connect with the bracelet, tapping along the beads with a formless rhythm. 

“You’re still wearing this?” Yunho asks.

“I like it,” Hongjoong says. “It’s pretty and it feels nice knowing someone thought of me when they bought it.”

"I bought you an expensive watch for your birthday and I've only ever seen you wear it once," Yunho grumbles against his neck. 

"That's because I keep it in the box where it won't get scratched up." Hongjoong can see his face flaming up in the wide mirrors along the wall and honestly wishes he'd just get it over with and spontaneously combust. "It's too special to wear every day, but I do like wearing it when you're not around and I miss you too much."

Yunho hugs him tighter, whispers a throaty, " _Hyung_ ," that sends Hongjoong's heart skittering in his chest. _Hell_.

Mingi looks as if he’s about to come vibrating out of his skin watching them gently move to a tune only Yunho can hear. Even Jongho looks bright, wide-eyed and giddy. It makes Hongjoong’s skin prickle and his insides grow cold with something approximating dread.

“What are you guys--”

“Can you two _please_ put us out of our collective misery and get a room already,” Yeosang jeers from the sidelines. “San is trying to pull up a betting pool and I don’t want to waste my food money.”

A lot of things seem to happen all at once:

  1. Yunho squawks something high-pitched and indignant in Hongjoong’s ear he doesn’t quite catch over the rush of blood in his head surging at once to his cheeks.  
  

  2. Seonghwa starts laughing so hard he swears he’s going to piss himself, which sends both San and Wooyoung into a fit of hysterics that echoes across the room and probably into the hallway where the next group is waiting patiently to use their space.  
  

  3. Hongjoong opens his mouth and says with utmost sincerity, “We’ve shared plenty of rooms over the course of two tours.”



“That is not what I meant and you know it,” Yeosang pissily exclaims, but all Hongjoong can say is a stricken, “Oh no,” in his defense because he hadn’t meant to say anything at all.

He’s saved by their instructor coming back from break, kicking their asses over a tricky step sequence for the better part of an hour, before they’re all corralled into the showers and then the van for an impromptu filming opportunity thinly veiled as a picnic in the park. Yunho sticks close, wedges his head on Hongjoong’s shoulder for a while before commandeering his lap, and that’s all fine and good, but something is _wrong_. Every benign question is met with increasingly earnest word vomit Hongjoong has no control over. He fidgets his way through the brief filming period, nervously bounces his knees in the van ride home, and blocks out all noise by shoving his air pods in his ears blasting the Top 100 at a volume that is probably going to leave him deaf before they reach home.

At one point, only a few stoplights away from the dorm, Yunho leans over to tap him on the shoulder and asks, “Are you alright?”

He tries to say he’s fine, he really does, but the lie is drowned out by his mouth forming the word, “No,” followed by, “For some reason I can’t seem to tell a lie and it’s starting to really freak me out because I’m afraid I’m going to say something I shouldn’t, like confess.”

Yunho blinks. Hongjoong blinks back. His head feels hot as the realization hits.

Yunho looks as if he wants to pry, but is interrupted by Wooyoung yelling, “Oh my god, Jongho was right! It actually works!”

Like the inevitable crashing wave of an avalanche, all hell breaks loose.

“Someone ask him a question,” Wooyoung crows in the background, excitedly bouncing in his seat so hard the van rocks. “What do we want to know?”

“What,” Hongjoong says faintly.

“Sorry,” Yunho replies with a shamed expression. Mingi and Yeosang are playing rock-paper-scissors over who gets first dibs.

Seonghwa, at least, looks just as confused as Hongjoong feels. “What’s happening? What are we shaming Hongjoong for now?”

Mingi, apparent winner of the contest, excitedly shouts, “Are you secretly planning something really big for my birthday?”

“Lame,” San groans.

Hongjoong clenches his teeth to stop himself from answering to no avail. “I generally leave that up to management, but I do have a present ordered and I bribed Jongho to move to a separate room so you can jerk off in peace.”

Mingi pumps his fist with a hissed, “Yes!”

Yunho regards him dubiously from across the aisle. “Why are you so worried about Mingi’s masturbation habits?”

“I’m not, but he complains often enough about blue balls that I thought it might be nice to save Jongho from hearing about it, too,” Hongjoong supplies honestly. Top 100 is currently playing a ballad he switches over to something aggressive and loud, clamps his hands over his ears so he can’t hear anyone talk. “Stop asking me questions!”

He’s saved from more questioning by the van coming to a rolling stop outside their building. Hongjoong waits the requisite thirty seconds for their manager and the driver to unload before scrambling out, knocking his shins against Seonghwa’s knees in his haste to escape and doesn’t bother stopping to apologize because he saw the evil glint in Wooyoung and San’s eyes, the smirk on Yeosang’s face, and knows they’re all about to gang up on him.

The head start gives him maybe three minutes of extra time to _think_. 

Hongjoong paces the little kitchenette with his head in hands and his heart racing rabbit fast in his chest. He hadn’t eaten anything strange in the last few days. He hasn’t run afoul of an angry witch or purposefully taunted anything supernatural hellbent on cursing him for the injustice. Hongjoong would like to think he operates in the real world where such things as curses or truth potions don't exist, yet here he is unable to say anything but the bare truth.

His air pods lose their charge on the second pace around the kitchen, just in time for the group to make it in and for Wooyoung to zero in on him like a shark who smells blood in the water. 

The rest of the group huddles up to close off the entrance, Seonghwa and Yunho at the very back wearing expressions of confused entertainment and vague guilt respectively.

San and Yeosang advance.

“Guys, please, you’re scaring me,” Hongjoong tries to reason. 

Seonghwa whispers loudly from the rear, “What’s happening?” To which Yunho winces and whispers back, “I didn’t think it was real.”

Hongjoong latches on to that as his back hits the counter. “What isn’t real?”

“We’ll tell you after you answer one question,” San coos. “Yeosang?”

“Let Wooyoung ask,” Yeosang dodges, clamping Hongjoong’s arm in a vice grip and grinning wide. “He’s the one who managed to sneak it in.”

Wooyoung grabs a chair from the kitchen table and stands on it while using Jongho’s shoulders as a makeshift podium. “Kim Hongjoong, the tribunal has--”

“Fuck’s sake, Wooyoung, just ask the question so I can go piss,” Mingi whines. “Stop dragging this out!”

“Ugh, fine.” Wooyoung turns back, clears his throat, and grins so evilly Hongjoong instantaneously develops a flop sweat that beads up along his spine and on his forehead. “Kim Hongjoong, in the interest of settling a bet--”

“That I did not waste money on,” Yeosang helpfully adds in.

Wooyoung rolls his eyes. “A bet that Yeosang was too much of a pussy to drop money on, yes. Do you or do you not like our Yunho?” He balances his weight on Jongho’s right shoulder and points dramatically at Yunho standing stockstill and pale behind him. “As in romantically. With tongue.”

Jongho snorts a quiet, “Really could have done without that last bit.” 

Over the sound of Seonghwa’s choked laughter, Hongjoong imagines he can hear his own blood freeze. San and Yeosang have his arms gripped too tight to break free so it’s not like he can stuff his fists into his mouth to keep from answering. Gritting his teeth doesn’t accomplish much other than to make his jaw ache, his teeth creaking form the pressure as the urge to answer surges forcefully in his throat.

“I--”

Yunho has gone so pale and wide-eyed he looks bloodless. Hongjoong doesn’t know what kind of signal that is, but clearly it’s nothing good. He can already see the carefully built friendship between them crumbling into dust.

San leans in closer, “You?”

Hongjoong hasn’t been this emotionally available since the last time he’d visited home and spent an hour stress-crying on his mother’s shoulders. He’s probably going to break out in hives any minute now. 

He can feel the answer heaving in his chest, bubbling up along his tongue. Hongjoong squeezes his eyes as tightly shut as he can manage and blurts, “I think _like_ isn’t a strong enough word for what I feel when it comes to Yunho.”

Yeosang breathes a soft little _oh_ of surprise next to him. 

Sweat trickles down the back of his neck. His eyes burn. He can track Yeosang’s fingers yanking on the bracelet and allows his eyes to open at the sound of the beads crackling around his feet. He doesn’t look up. 

“What?”

“Cursed bracelet,” Wooyoung explains, sounding a little shamed under the apparent giddiness of forcing a secret out into the open. “It came with a little card saying whoever wore it would be unable to lie, but I didn’t think it was _real_ until Jongho mentioned you were saying weird stuff in the car. We -- uh --”

“We’re not sorry,” San interjects smoothly. He presses a quick closed-mouth kiss to Hongjoong’s cheek and pats his stomach affectionately. “We’re also all going to our rooms so you and Yunho can talk.”

The blue and gold beads are still rolling gently along his shoes when Hongjoong finally finds the courage to look up.

Yunho is staring at him, a red flush in his cheeks climbing over the bridge of his nose and igniting on the tips of his ears visible beneath his snapback. San and Wooyoung are too busy high-fiving to notice, jostling Yeosang between them and taunting Mingi about money lost on this little scheme.

Yunho's mouth pops open on a wheeze.

Hongjoong runs.

**\----------**

Three hours, six missed calls, and about seventy different text messages from the entire group later, Hongjoong finally answers Yunho’s call.

“Where are you?”

“Nebraska.” Hongjoong picks at the lint on his shirt and debates flinging himself bodily from the barred metal dome he’d climbed to escape his self-inflicted mortification. “Trying to audition for the part of a scarecrow by standing in the middle of a corn field and yelling at birds.”

“Hilarious,” Yunho says dryly. “Be serious.”

Hongjoong watches his breath billow out of his mouth. It’s so cold his toes have already gone numb in his boots. “I went home.”

“Seriously? Are the trains even running right now?”

“I took the bus,” Hongjoong lies because he _can_ now. “Did you know no one even recognized me on public transport? Not a single person asked me for autographs or pictures or anything. I think we should take that as a challenge and tell KQ to give us more promotions.”

Yunho goes quiet over the line. He’s probably rethinking his placement in the same group as Hongjoong, mulling over ways he can get out from under his contract and walk away without incurring astronomical fees. Maybe the whole group has decided to vote Hongjoong out and this is the kindest way they could think to break the news -- by shoving Hongjoong’s useless crush at the receiver to let him down gently before brutally yanking rug out from beneath his feet.

“I can hear traffic.”

“Congratulations on having ears,” Hongjoong aggressively mutters. “Can you please just let me lick my wounds in peace? I think I’ve been humiliated enough for one day without you coming over here to rub my nose in it.”

“You definitely climbed the jungle gym at the park four blocks away again,” Yunho says, smug, and doesn’t wait for Hongjoong to answer before he’s bulldozing on, “Stay there. Run off again and I’ll restring that bracelet and put it on you _myself_.”

Hongjoong swallows back the petulant _you’ll have to catch me first_ sitting on the tip of his tongue, which works out considering Yunho hangs up almost immediately and he’d have been saying it to a dead receiver anyway. He idly knocks the back of his heels against the top rungs and debates running again. Maybe he should, all things considered, but it’s not as if he can run forever. Despite whatever his current position would suggest, staring out at the quiet neighborhood from the very top of the playground equipment, he’s not a coward, not really. Willfully joining the idol industry beat that out of him years ago. He wouldn’t have survived this long if it hadn’t.

He’s almost settled in favor of running off again when Yunho appears below him, breathing hard clutching at his kneecaps.

Hongjoong waves. “Hey.”

“Hi.” Yunho catches his breath, squares his shoulders and pins Hongjoong with a hot-eyed glare that makes Hongjoong’s internal temperature spike. “Come down here.”

Hongjoong stubbornly grips the metal beneath him. “No. I’m busy enjoying the view.”

Yunho stuffs his hands in his hoodie pocket and offers up a casual, “The view is pretty spectacular from where I’m standing.”

“The view of the playground equipment?”

Yunho grins so hard his cheeks dimple. “No.”

Well, that’s--that’s promising at least. Hongjoong flexes his numb fingers along the cold metal. “Um--”

“Seonghwa said something about you being gooey,” Yunho continues mercilessly. 

“Oh my god, are we really talking about this?” Hongjoong says horrified. “Yunho, please--”

Yunho groans. “Hongjoong, either come down here and face me like a man or I’m going to climb up there and drag you down myself.”

“Okay, okay,” Hongjoong relents. 

Climbing down is a lot harder than going up, mostly due to the fact he knows he looks a little ridiculous wiggling himself down now that his feet have gone numb and his hands ache gripping the rungs. The crunch of cedar chips when he makes it back to solid ground echoes loud in the deserted street, almost as loud as the thump-thump-thump in Hongjoong’s ears as his heart beats hard.

He gets as far as a stuttered, “What do you--” before Yunho is engulfing him in a hug, burying his face against Hongjoong’s shoulder and making a low noise in his throat that sounds a little bit like a dying whale. 

“ _Like_ isn’t a strong enough word for what I feel when it comes to you either,” Yunho presses. “And fuck you for running away.”

Hongjoong digs his nails into the soft fabric around Yunho’s waist. “I thought -- are you under some kind of curse too?”

Yunho snorts. “Yeah, it’s called being in love with a moron who’s allergic to feelings.”

“Oh,” Hongjoong breathes. The light pollution means the skyline is totally obscured, but still Hongjoong sees stars. “You--me?”

“Me, you,” Yunho agrees, holds him at arms length and grins wide despite the crimson tint to his face and neck. “For a lyricist, you’re really terrible at using your words.”

“Words are hard and, honestly, this seems so unreal I can’t even feel my face right now,” Hongjoong admits. 

Yunho’s eyes darken. “Can you feel your lips?”

Before he can ask why, Yunho is leaning down and dropping a hesitant, chaste kiss to his mouth. A single instant of contact before he breaks away and smooths his thumbs up the column of Hongjoong’s neck.

The epitome of intelligence, Hongjoong garbles out a choked, “Ah.”

“This okay?”

“Mhm,” Hongjoong agrees, high-pitched and shaky. He swallows tight, gripping Yunho’s waist harder. “Can you--again?”

“I can,” Yunho agrees easily. “Under one condition.”

“Anything,” Hongjoong rasps. He’s delighted to feel the tremor that shakes through Yunho’s body and indulges in feeling smug that he has this effect.

“Promise to start wearing the watch I gave you,” Yunho finally demands. “I bought it for a reason.”

“But it’ll get scratched!”

“Then I’ll get it repaired or buy you a new one.” Yunho scowls, the crimson darkening his cheeks and nose again. “If you can wear a cursed bracelet some fan you don't even know gave you, then you can wear the watch.”

The smugness returns ten-fold and Hongjoong preens. “Were you _jealous_?”

“No,” Yunho denies, too quick.

“You were!” Hongjoong steps closer with a laugh. “That’s so cute. My jealous Yunho-yah.”

Yunho visibly bites the inside of his mouth. “Am I?”

Hongjoong stares, transfixed, at the little divot in Yunho’s bottom lip. “Are you what?”

“Yours.”

Standing so close like this, their breath intermingles in the space between them. Hongjoong breathes slow and even, entranced by the way Yunho’s eyes search his face for something Hongjoong has always kept hidden away, suddenly laid bare the instant Wooyoung asked him that question in the kitchen.

“I think,” he starts, “that you’re your own person, but I would very much like it if you’d kiss me again.”

Yunho’s eyebrows furrow. “That’s not--”

“And,” Hongjoong tacks on, ignoring the shake in his voice and the nervous quake in his chest, “I would also appreciate it if you _only_ kissed me. For an undetermined amount of time or until you get tired of me being a workaholic and break up with me.”

Watching the grin overtake Yunho’s face is like watching the sun come out after a long winter night, breathtaking in its intensity.

“Deal,” Yunho agrees and leans down to capture his mouth again.

His lips are chapped, Yunho’s nose is cold where it digs into Hongjoong’s cheek, and they keep bumping their teeth every few seconds from smiling too hard. They stumble a little when they go to break away, laughing together from the giddy rush of a reciprocated crush.

“I like you a lot,” Hongjoong confesses when they calm down. “I’ll start wearing the watch tomorrow.”

“Good.” Yunho knocks their foreheads together and starts giggling. “By the way, Seonghwa tells me you like to be the little spoon.”

“Seonghwa is a dead man walking,” Hongjoong informs him calmly. Yunho laughs, slides his palms down over Hongjoong’s shoulders until he can drape his arms over Hongjoong’s back, casually possessive. 

Yunho pecks him once on the nose. “You can’t kill Seonghwa for telling the truth.”

“I guess not,” Hongjoong allows. “The truth has worked out pretty well for me so far.”

Yunho stares at him so soft and affectionately that the stuttered, rabbit-fast beat of Hongjoong’s heart settles down to a pace that no longer threatens to give him a stroke. The group taking advantage of the cursed bracelet wasn’t the kindest thing he’s suffered through, but the results are undeniably worth it.

Hongjoong traces the shy slant of Yunho’s mouth with the tip of his ring finger. “Question.”

“Hm?”

“Did you know about the curse?”

Yunho has the decency to look shamed. “Uh--”

“And you let Wooyoung interrogate me without trying to warn me about it?”

Hongjoong almost takes pity on him when Yunho flinches, feels the tightening of his fingers on the back of Hongjoong’s jacket. “Listen, in my defense--”

He pauses. 

Hongjoong expectantly raises his brows. “Yes?”

“In my defense,” Yunho continues, clearly embarrassed, “I was getting impatient waiting for you to make a move and thought, you know, now would be as good time to find out the answer as any.”

Of course. Hongjoong blows out a harsh breath. 

“Are you mad?” Yunho weakly asks.

“A little.” 

He eyes the curvature of Yunho’s nose, the sad slant of his mouth, watches the bob of Yunho’s throat as he swallows harshly. Hongjoong resigns himself to becoming a doormat, because the anger he should be feeling is drowned out by the tangled ball of affection he holds for this ridiculous man. 

Dammit. 

“Kiss me again and I’ll forgive you.”

Yunho eagerly complies. 

He’ll deal with Wooyoung’s betrayal and Seonghwa’s inability to keep his mouth shut later, but for now, here, standing under a streetlight getting handsy next to a playground, Hongjoong supposes it’s fine. Curse or no curse, he has Yunho warm along his front and in his hands and that’s good enough.

“Let’s go makeout in the slide,” Yunho suggests.

“I love you,” Hongjoong says, smirking at the noise Yunho makes deep in his chest at the admission. “Last one in has to clean dishes for a week!”

“Hey, no fair!” 

Yunho gives chase, laughing, and they tumble together in the little neon yellow alcove breathless with excitement. 

Hongjoong forgives everyone the instant Yunho’s long body drapes over him and finds that, yes, Yunho’s ass is just as firm as he imagined it’d be.

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> i think i teased this, what, six or seven months ago? lmao i guess sometimes miracles _do_ happen and old wips finally get finished  
> -Ash


End file.
